DTE Energy Deploying 1.5 GW Battery Storage to Support Michigan’s Renewable and Microgrid Initiatives
Detroit-based utility DTE Energy is investing $1.6 billion with LG Energy Solution Vertech to deploy grid-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) across Michigan.
The contract with LG Energy Solution Vertech includes eight BESS projects totaling close to 1.5 GW and 6 GWh of generation capacity over the next two years.
“Michigan is a key U.S. manufacturing region for our company, where many of our colleagues live and work,” Jaehong Park, CEO of LG Energy Solution Vertech, the U.S. energy storage division of Korean-based LG Energy Solution, said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to work with DTE to bring Michigan-made energy storage to our communities. As more US-made energy storage projects are added to the energy grid, we’re building opportunities for advanced roles in the state that support our national energy needs.”
Last year, LG Energy Solution Vertech opened its $1.4-billion plant to manufacture lithium-iron phosphate batteries in Holland, Michigan.
Battery storage capacity has been deployed for years to store and balance intermittent renewable energy resources such as solar and wind. Increasingly, however, it is being utilized as a flexible tool to handle transient load swings from data computer facilities as well as provide grid services to maintain balance in the system.
Microgrid and DER developers such as VoltaGrid, PowerSecure and ELM Microgrid are increasingly pairing their projects with battery storage.
DTE Energy itself has worked to decarbonize and decentralize its own power generation mix through microgrids and other distributed energy resources including a 100-MW solar project in Michigan to help Ford Motor Company offset its carbon emissions. The utility also is building a microgrid for Delta Electronics at the latter’s Detroit-area manufacturing facility.
Read more about the DTE battery storage investment with LG Vertech at T&D World.
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EnergyTech Staff
Rod Walton is head of content for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.
Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
He can be reached at [email protected].
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.